by wildbow
There was a long pause.
He spoke, “I suppose not. So let’s dialogue.”
“Go ahead,” Panacea’s voice was small, almost defeated.
“What’s holding you back? You’re capable of so much, of changing the world, of destroying it, but you’re so very small, Amelia Claire Lavere.”
His voice was almost mocking as he said her name.
“That’s not my name.”
“It’s the name you were born with. Imagine my surprise when I found out your relation to Marquis. In my last visit to Brockton Bay, I crossed paths with each of the major players. I met the man. I must tell you, Amelia, he was a very interesting character.”
“I don’t really want to know.”
“I’m going to tell you. And I have another motive, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Marquis was a man of honor. He decided on the rules he would play by and he stuck to them. He put his life and limb at risk to try to keep me from killing women and children, and I decided to see if I could use that to break him. I admit I failed.”
“He killed Allfather’s daughter.”
“No, Amelia, he didn’t.”
There was a pause.
“Did you kill her?”
“No. What I’m saying is that Marquis would not have killed the girl, even under duress; that was one of the rules he set for himself. If he was going to violate that rule, he would have done it when I’d tried to break him.”
“Allfather put a contract on my head before he died, because of what Marquis did. Because—It’s how I found out he was my dad. A letter from Dragon to Carol.”
“Carol… Ah yes, Brandish. Well, I suspect either Dragon was manipulating you, or your father was manipulating Dragon in an effort to get a message to you.”
“A message.”
“That he’s there, that he exists. Perhaps he sought to ensure he wasn’t forgotten by his child. He was an old-fashioned individual, so it makes sense that he’d seek immortality through his progeny.”
Bonesaw piped up. “That’s stupid. Why do something like that when someone like me could make you immortal for real?”
“Shush, now. Finish sewing yourself up while Amelia and I talk.”
“Okay,” Bonesaw said. Her voice overlapped with Panacea saying, “Stop saying that. It’s not my name.”
“Isn’t it?”
There was another silence.
“You’re your father’s daughter. Both of you are bound up in rules you’ve imposed on yourselves. His rules defined his demeanor, the boundaries he worked within, the goals he sought to achieve and how he achieved them. They were his armor as much as his power was. I would guess your rules are your weakness. Rather than focus you, they leave you in free fall, nothing to grasp on to except your sister there, and we both know how that has turned out.”
Sister. I made a mental note of that. There were four people in that room.
“I—how do you know this?”
“Our emotion reader picked up on some. I’ve figured out the rest. As you might expect, I’m rather familiar with damaged individuals.”
Bonesaw giggled.
I didn’t like the way this was going. I looked down the hall to see the doors. Each door had once had a window on the upper half, but there were only slivers left, the rest scattered over the floor. In an ideal world, some distraction would present itself, or the conversation would become a heated argument and they would distract each other. I could rise from my crouching position, step forward, aim my gun and fire. Unload the gun’s clip on Jack and Bonesaw.
Or I’d miss, resulting in the messy deaths of Panacea, her sister and I. I really needed that distraction if I was going to do this.
“I’m not… not that type of damaged. I’m not a monster,” Panacea protested. As an afterthought, she added, “No offense.”
“I’ve been called worse. I almost relish being called a monster. As though I’ve transcended humanity and become something from myth.”
“Myth.”
“And according to Cherish, it may well be a destruction myth.”
“What?”
“She recently informed me that the world is going to end because of me. Not quite sure how or when. It could well be that I’m the butterfly that flaps his wings and stirs a hurricane into being through a chain of cause and effect.”
“I don’t want the world to end,” Bonesaw said. “It’s fun.”
“It is. But I expect it won’t end altogether. There’s always going to be survivors.”
“True.”
“And it makes for an interesting picture. After everything’s gone, there’ll be a new beginning. Who better to craft the remains into a new world than you and Mannequin?”
“And Amelia?”
“And Amelia, if she so chooses. We could be like gods in a new world.”
“You’re crazy,” Panacea muttered.
“According to studies, clinically depressed individuals have a more accurate grasp of reality than the average person. We tell ourselves lies and layer falsehoods and self-assurances over one another in order to cope with a world colored by pain and suffering. We put blinders on. If we lose that illusion, we crumble into depression or we crack and go mad. So perhaps I’m crazy, but only because I see things too clearly?”
“No,” Panacea’s voice was quiet. “Um. You’re not going to kill me if I argue, are you?”
“I’m liable to kill you if you don’t.”
“It’s not that you see too clearly. I think your view is warped.”
“Over the course of millions of generations that led to your birth, how many of your ancestors were successful because they were cruel to others, because they lied, cheated, stole from their kin, betrayed their brothers and sisters, warred with their neighbors, killed? We know about Marquis, so that’s one.”
How many were successful because they cooperated? I wondered.
Jack probably had a rebuttal to my question, but I wasn’t about to speak up to hear it, and Panacea didn’t ask. She fell silent.
I was tensed, ready to move and shoot the second an opportunity arose. Anything would suffice. Anything would do.
I visualized it, the steps I’d take to open fire, and I realized that the shards of glass on the ground between me and the door could provide them with a half-second of warning. Slowly, carefully, I began brushing the shards aside, keeping my ears peeled for some clue about a key distraction.
“Survival of the fittest, it sounds so tidy, but it’s really hundreds of thousands of years of brutish, messy, violent incidents, billions of events that you’d want to avert your eyes from if you were to see them in person. And that’s a large part of what’s shaped us into what we are. But we wear masks, we pretend to be good, we extend a helping hand to others for reasons that are ultimately self-serving, and all the while, we’re just crude, pleasure-seeking, conniving, selfish apes. We’re all monsters, deep down inside.”
Again, one of those pauses that suggested something was going on that was visual and out of sight, rather than something I could overhear. Jack offered a dry chuckle. “Did that hit home?”
“I’m… not that kind of person. Not a monster. I’d kill myself before I became like that.”
“But you see how you could be like us. It wouldn’t even be very hard. Just… let go of those rules of yours. You’d get everything you ever wanted.”
“Not family.”
“Yes, family.” Bonesaw cut in.
“You guys kill each other. That’s not family.”
“You’re derailing our conversation, Bonesaw,” Jack chided the girl. “Amelia, when I say you could have everything you ever wanted, I’m telling you that you could live free of guilt, of shame, you could have your sister by your side, no more doubts plaguing you, no more feeling down. Haven’t you laid in bed at night, wondering, praying for a world where you could have something like that? I’m telling you that you can have those things, and I promise you that the transition from being who yo
u are now to being who you could be would be much quicker than you suspect.”
“No.” The defiance was half-hearted.
“Amelia, you could let yourself cut loose and love life for the first time since you were young.”
And just like that, her resistance crumbled. “I’ve never felt like that. Never felt carefree. Not since I could remember. Not even when I was a kid.”
“I see. From your earliest memory, what was that? In Marquis’s home? No? Being taken home by the heroes and heroines that would become your false family? Ah, I saw that change in expression. That would be your earliest memory, and you found yourself struggling to adjust to your new home, to school and life without your supervillain daddy. By the time you did figure those things out, you had other worries. I imagine your family was distant. So you struggled to please them, to be a good girl, not that it ever mattered. There was only disappointment.”
“You sound like Tattletale. That’s not a compliment.”
“My ability to read people is learned, not given, I assure you. Most of the conclusions I’ve come to have been from the cues you’ve given me. Body language, tone, things you’ve said. And I know these sorts of things and what to look for because I’ve met others like you. That’s what I’m offering you. A chance to be with similar people for the first time in your life, a chance to be yourself, to have everything you want, and to be with me. I suspect you’ve never been around someone who actually paid attention to you.”
“Tattletale did. And Skitter.”
I startled at that.
“I meant on a long-term basis, but let’s talk about that. I imagine they were telling you ‘No, you aren’t. You can be good.’”
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t believe them, did you, Amelia? You’ve spent years telling yourself the opposite. You’re a bad person, you’re destined to be bad, by circumstance and blood. And even though you didn’t believe them, you’ll believe me when I tell you no, you aren’t a good person, but that’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“You say that, but you believe me when I say it.”
There was another pause where Panacea didn’t venture a response.
“Isn’t it unfair? Through no fault of your own, the blood in your veins is the blood of a criminal, and that’s affected how your family looks at you. You’ve been saddled with feelings that aren’t your fault, and doomed to a life without color, enjoyment or pleasure. Don’t you deserve to follow your passions? A decade and a half of doing what others want you to do, doing what society wants you to do, haven’t you earned the right to do what you really desire, just this once?”
“That’s not really that convincing,” Panacea spoke, but she didn’t sound assertive.
“I know. So I’ll offer you a deal. If you indulge yourself, we’ll surrender.”
“What?”
“I won’t even make you do it now. Just look me in the eye, and honestly tell me you’ll do it. Drop all of the rules you’ve set yourself. I don’t care what you do after, you can wipe your sister’s memories, you can kill yourself, you can run away or come with us. And your side wins.”
“Aren’t we winning anyways?”
“Up for debate. I’m really quite thrilled with the current situation. Very enjoyable, and we’ve certainly made an impact.”
“This deal is a trap. You’ll make me do it and then you’ll kill me.”
“I could, but I won’t. Do you really have anything to lose by trying? If I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you regardless of what you say or do. Three and a half words: ‘I’ll do it’, and we leave the city.”
I almost stood right then, to open fire before she made a decision one way or another. I had to convince myself to wait, that no matter what they were saying, they wouldn’t leave right this instant.
Then I heard the sound of glass crunching in time with someone’s footsteps.
With the length of time I’d waited for an opportunity, I was going to take what I could get. My heart pounded, my hands shook even as I gripped the gun as hard as I could, but I let out a slow breath as I drew myself smoothly to a standing position and stepped into the doorway, pointing the gun through the window frame in the door.
They hadn’t heard me move. It left me a second to take in the scene and make sure I was shooting the right people.
They were in a music room that had been arranged with seats on a series of ascending platforms, backed by windows that had exploded inward, scattering the area with glass shards. At the bottom ‘floor’, there was a podium waiting for the teacher. Jack was walking up the steps to approach a girl. I knew he was Jack because he was the only male present. He was wreathed in thin white smoke, wore a light gray t-shirt marked with blood stains and black jeans tucked into cowboy boots. A thick leather belt had a variety of knives, including a butcher’s cleaver, a stiletto and a serrated blade.
His teammate Bonesaw, was standing in the corner of the room just to my right. I could see the edge of a dress, an apron with tools and vials in the pocket, long blond hair curled into ringlets, and that same shroud of smoke around her, moving out to fill the room. The rest of her was obscured by the wall to my right and the shelves that stood behind the podium. It put her in an awkward spot for me to shoot. If I’d known she was there, I would have crawled over to the door at that end, gunned her down at point-blank.
Panacea stood at the far end of the room, at the highest point. She had brown hair that was blowing slightly with the breeze that flowed in through the glassless windows behind her, topped with a flat top cap. Freckles covered her face, and she was dressed in a tank top and cargo pants. More than anything else, she wore a look of fear on her face that marked her as the victim, not the threat.
And process of elimination meant the thing beside her was her sister. I would have called it a coffin, but it was clearly made of something living. It resembled a massive growth of flesh that had been shaped into a vague diamond shape, gnarled with horny callous and toenail-like growths that protected it and reinforced it at the edges. On the side closest to me, a girl’s face was etched into an oversized growth of bone. It was unmoving, decorative, with locks of long wavy hair that wrapped around the sides of the diamond. The ‘sister’ floated a foot over the floor.
It was so startling to see that I nearly forgot what I was doing. I drew in a short breath, then let slow breath out as I aimed the gun at Jack and squeezed the trigger.
I’d mentally planned to unload the gun on Jack and Bonesaw, but I’d forgotten about the recoil. At the same time Jack was struck down, my arm jerked up, and my mental instruction to fire nonetheless carried through. The second bullet hit the ceiling.
I whipped the door open and turned to my right to fire on Bonesaw, but my arm was numb, and her reflexes were sharp. She was already opening a door at the other corner of the classroom before I could shoot, making her way into the hallway.
I had a split second to decide if I should chase her or go after Jack. I glanced at Panacea, saw her staring. As if the eye contact snapped her out of a daze, she lunged toward Jack, one hand outstretched. She stopped dead in her tracks as he lashed out blindly with the knife. Reversing direction, she went for her sister instead.
Jack hadn’t been incapacitated. Aside from the impact of the gunshot, he didn’t even seem wounded. He was on his feet in a flash, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees to face me, his knife in motion.
I ducked back through the door, the knife delivering a glancing blow to my back. It failed to penetrate my costume.
Oddly enough, moving into the hallway and putting my back to the wall made me feel like I’d committed to fighting Jack, even if I might have been in a better position to go after Bonesaw.
“Wake,” I heard Panacea speak. She said something else that I missed.
I felt a jolt, but it wasn’t physical. It shook me on an emotional level. My voice abandoned me, not that I wanted to speak. I felt as if I stood on the very edge of the gr
and canyon and any movement, even one to step back onto solid ground, was guaranteed to send me falling to certain death.
The levitating construct of flesh slammed through the door and the door-frame that Bonesaw had used to make her exit. The mask of bone drew upward like an opened lid, to reveal a clear sphere, containing vitreous fluid and a teenage girl with blond hair.
Her eyes were open, but she looked half asleep, her hair fanned out around her, floating in fluid that seemed thicker than water. Her arms were outstretched, but her hands and lower body were hidden by the meat that surrounded her. The edges of the shell that were unfolding around her were curved forward like the horns of a bull.
If the sister had come after me, I wouldn’t have been able to fight back. Like a deer in the headlights, I stood there, unable to think or compel my body to move.
She rotated in mid-air slowly, as if getting her bearings. As ponderously as she had moved one moment, she went tearing after Bonesaw in the next, slamming through walls as momentum carried her too far and as she turned a corner too tight and sheared through the drywall, tile and window frames.
I could hear Bonesaw laughing with childlike glee as she fled.
“Not smart, not smart, either of you,” Jack chastised us. “See, with Victoria gone, you’ve left me here with a hostage.”
I stood with my back to the wall, gun in hand. Ten bullets in here, four spent, if I’d counted right. I’d always sort of rolled my eyes at how movies treated guns and counting bullets, but it was harder than I’d thought. The shock and disorientation that came with firing a gun tended to disrupt even basic arithmetic. I couldn’t remember how many times I’d fired during the fight in the parking lot.
“I’ve been turning every microbe that touches my skin into an airborne plague, Jack,” Panacea spoke, her voice low. “You should be dead now.”
“And me?” I called out, feeling a pang of alarm.
“I didn’t know you were there. You should be dead too. Sorry.”
“A benefit of little Bonesaw’s smoke,” Jack answered. “If I recall correctly, it’s something of a safeguard in case she accidentally deploys a concoction she hasn’t immunized herself or the rest of our team against. The fact that it works against bugs and small rodents is a side benefit, rather than the intent. Bonesaw’s work has made us members of the Nine more or less immune to disease anyways.”